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Wednesday, April 9, 2014

First Fruits

We had some beautiful 50 degree weather today. I took Reed to do his driving test after work, he passed. Good job Reed!

I got home a little early so I planted our first greens of the 2014 growing season. I planted...
A eight hundred square feet of baby greens, approximately 100 square feet each of the following:

Red Oak Leaf Lettuce

Spinach - two varieties

Arugula

Kale

Red Russian Kale

Cilantro

Ruby Streaks

Dandelion Greens

These will make one giant salad, or more like salads for 100 families by early May. But as exciting as this is, this won't be the first greens out of the garden.

To get the earliest possible greens you have to plant crops in the fall that are winter hardy in Minnesota. Spinach is the main candidate. But this only works if there is an early snow cover to blanket the baby spinach and protect it from the deep cold and desiccating winds of winter. The spinach goes dormant and wakes up again when the conditions are right. Like this week.

We have about 300 square feet of baby spinach greening up. We will be able to start harvesting this spinach by the end of April. We will also harvest some dandelion greens at about this time.